What if a retail store was a marketing, not a sales, channel?

Smart home sound system specialist Sonos opended its European concept store in London last year. Located on Earlham Street in Seven Dials, the 241 sq m store has been designed to replicate the home environment and showcase how Sonos fits in it. Shoppers, or betters said “guests”, will be able to stream their own music into one of the two ‘Listening Rooms’ – acoustically-tuned, house-shaped structures designed to replicate the multi-room listening experience Sonos sells – to create their own unique sonic adventures in store while testing out the speakers and system.

The brand has wide retail distribution, selling in retailers including John Lewis, Amazon and Currys/PC World, but has realised recently that it needs its own space to promote the brand experience and widen its customer base.

Whitney Walker, Sonos stores general manager, explains: “Up until the time we built the Sonos store the best place to discover Sonos was at a friend’s house. We have tried to recreate that sense of discovery in a retail environment. Advocacy is an awesome tool but at the same time if it’s your best tool you’ve got to tailor your business model to it.”

Omar Gurnah, global retail marketing director, says key to the success of the stores is not sales but experience. Sonos store has a sleek, minimal style, while all staff have been on a month-long training programme to ensure a retail experience focused on customer service not sales. Ir is a marketing investment for the brand.

 

It is about putting the experience in front of people in their own environment for the first time. If they end up buying from Amazon, John Lewis or Currys, absolutely great. We would rather they buy here but we won’t measure the success of this space by how many speakers it sells. It’ll be the number of people that come in, get a great experience and think they should add a Sonos to their home.

The most important metric is “how many people leave the store and are then likely to recommend Sonos to friends and family” .

Which when it comes to retail is a very different way of measuring success.

The brand also takes rather a different approach to most tech brands. While the majority focus on product features, Sonos prefers to talk about the brand experience to build awareness.

“Our main thing is rather than talk to people about the tech benefits we want to show them the difference it can make in their homes,” says Gurnah. “We have a story there that most people can relate to, so we would focus on showing people that when they have access to music it changes how they live at home. Once they have got that, then we explain what the product does. Standing in a John Lewis being shown the system is the easy part. Some 91% of people that buy a Sonos have done detailed research online so when they’re in store it’s because they’re excited. The difficult part is inspiring people about a different way of listening.”

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Extract from https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/11/16/sonos-first-uk-store-marketing-not-sales-channel/